Archive notice: This article was originally published on November 24, 2008. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
The film by Tomer Eshed of the Konrad Wolf University of Film and Television in Potsdam is distributed exclusively to cinemas by interfilm Berlin. STYX by Aike Arndt was nominated for the German Short Film Award. STYX is also a current short film from interfilm Short Film Distribution. OUR WONDERFUL NATURE and STYX are available to cinemas through interfilm’s short-film distribution service.
From the Short Tiger ’08 jury statement:
“The animated film OUR WONDERFUL NATURE is a small masterpiece that knows how to appeal to a broad audience throughout the world and is equally at home in a large multiplex and an art-house cinema. Few films can claim that.
“It is not easy to put into words the irresistible charm and sparkling wit of this unusual martial-arts film, so I will not even try. Suffice it to say that this affectionate little nature film undoubtedly stands comparison with the great works of the genre. Every artistic device—from the nearly perfect animation and original storytelling to the fantastic film music that further emphasizes the film’s spirit—builds toward a punchline that is both comic and true, and applies equally to the film and the water shrew: however brief the pleasure, it was tremendous!”
German Short Film Award nomination statement for STYX:
“In Aike Arndt’s graduation film, the black-and-white journey into Hades is very successfully combined with the medieval Dance of Death. Antiquity, the Middle Ages and a modern interpretation are woven into a coherent story: a woman outwits death, escaping his grasp—or, more precisely, his boat. With a wink and several surprises, the old myth is told against the grain. In the end, instead of Charon rowing across the Acheron, it is the old woman. Even in hell, therefore, a woman can replace the man through her sheer will to survive. Well-edited images show different people passing us at the ends of their lives. Without becoming didactic, the myth is retold and extended in a new way. Entertaining and instructive, the film tackles the great subject of death and leaves its images in the viewer’s mind. The sound design and music by Florian Bodenschatz and Anja Driemecker are arranged so effectively that they help tell the story.”
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